Business Analysis

Have you wanted to differentiate yourself in the field of business analysis? Have you noticed more requests for certified business analysts? The International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) offers four different levels of certification. IIBA’s website says the Level 3, the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP), “recognizes BA professionals who manage and lead with over five years of business analysis experience.”

According to the IIBA’s Certification Registry in March, there are 2,880 people in the United States with a CBAP certification. Of those, just 76 reside in Washington and only six reside in Olympia. Two of those six are part of Team Treinen. We sat down with our CBAP-certified consultants to get their advice for preparing and taking the CBAP exam. Here are their top tips.

Know thyself

Do you know how you learn? Do you remember best by reading, writing, seeing or verbalizing? Since the CBAP exam is all about memorization, we recommend taking a quick learning style assessment like this one. From here, you can focus your studying on how you learn to ensure the information stays with you.

Do you know what you already know? After an initial pass of all the content and practice tests, our consultants said they went back and focused on only the areas where they needed work. One pointed out that business analysis applies to many different industries, but you may only have experience in one area. Focus your studying on business analysis areas you are not familiar with.

Practice, practice, practice

Both of our consultants said online practice tests were the single best thing they did to prepare and pass the CBAP exam. While the CBAP/CCBA Study Guide by Sybex has practice tests at the end of each chapter, they said the online tests really got them into the mindset of taking the real test. We recommend Watermark Online Learning for practice CBAP exams (and no, we’re not getting a cut for promoting them!). Their practice tests give you realistic questions and detailed feedback to help you prepare for the real thing.

Use tools and materials other than the CBAP study guide – this helps you change the way you look at and understand the information. Our consultants used these BABOK flashcards made for the CBAP exam.

What our consultants were surprised by

Both of our consultants said there were more math questions than they expected, so be prepared for that. You will be provided a calculator.

Also, many of the questions are theoretical or “ideal” situations, not real-world situations you might have experienced. Prepare by memorizing the right answers.

What to expect on CBAP exam day

The security is strict. Both consultants, who took exams in different years, said they were physically searched and were not allowed to bring anything in the exam room, even water! Don’t let this shake you, stay calm and confident.

The exam is given on a computer, and there will likely be people taking other exams in the same room. You will be handed scratch paper or a small whiteboard. Here is the key to CBAP exam day: when you sit down with your whiteboard, do a quick brain dump. Write down everything floating in your head that you have memorized for the exam. This allows you to focus on the questions in front of you and serves as a reference while you’re taking the test.

The test is multiple choice, and there is almost always more than one good answer. Pay attention to the nuances and try not to question yourself. The test allows you to mark questions you want to come back to, which our consultants highly recommend so you can go back if you have extra time.

Just in case you fail…

Test failure happens. It’s not a reflection of your expertise as a business analyst. Some people are better at taking tests than others. One of our consultants did fail the first time! They had the experience and knew the material. So, they studied more, went back three months later and passed.

What’s difficult about the CBAP exam is that the printout at the end doesn’t give you a score; it only tells you if you passed or failed. It does tell you which areas you need to focus on, so you know which areas to study for re-taking the exam. Our consultant who failed the first time said the first thing they did was to go back and take all the online tests first. From there, they reviewed the material they needed to improve on.

Ready, set, study

Preparing for and taking the CBAP exam is no small feat. Understanding your learning style, taking advantage of online practice tests and even re-taking the test can help ensure you pass the CBAP and demonstrate to the industry you are a qualified and professional business analyst.

For more than 15 years, Treinen has provided premier management and IT consulting in the Northwest. We deliver value to our clients and their customers by focusing on their needs and providing them with the best resources to get the job done. Sign up for our email updates to learn about webinars and the latest news about Treinen.

Have you ever thought of getting a certification for business analysis, to advance yourself as an expert and build up your resume? Two of our Treinen consultants who earned the IIBA CBAP certification shared their best practices in a free webinar. This will help prepare anyone preparing for the exam or considering the certification. Though they took the CBAP certification exam, these tips will help anyone looking into earning any certification.

Most organizations think of hiring a business analyst at the beginning of a project, when they need an experienced professional to help with creating and documenting requirements. Whether collecting user stories or building matrixes or identifying actors, a good business analyst is essential. Business analysts, however, can provide so much more through the life of a project than an initial set of requirements.

Business analysts bridge the divide between business and IT staff to ensure everyone is on the same page with the business needs that the final product should fulfill. Here are seven reasons why you need a business analyst after the requirements are gathered.

1. Validating requirements during procurement

Often large IT development projects begin with the acceptance of a bid based on a set of requirements. Who better than the analyst who wrote those requirements, or an experienced IT business analyst, to help write the RFP to find the right vendors or even help evaluate solutions in some cases? Depending on the potential market solutions, the business analyst can ensure the requirements are written in a way that will maximize the number of responses from qualified vendors.

2. Maintaining requirements after vendor selection

The gap between the requirements phase and the start of the project is often several months or more, which means those valuable requirements may no longer be as representative of current business practices as they were when they were written.

Organizations need someone who can adequately review those existing requirements and work with staff to determine the relevance and accuracy of those requirements. The business analyst can guide staff in updating the requirements if necessary to make sense to the chosen vendor.

3. Translating complicated business processes during development

Every organization must detail their existing or new processes as the project progresses. Though business staff are experts in what they do, they are not experts in communicating about what they do in a way that can be understood by those with no experience with the organization or by technical professionals.

A skilled business analyst can translate the intricacies about how the business works for technical staff.

A business analyst can also serve as a point of contact during development for quick answers when staff is occupied with the daily needs of their business. This prevents “blockers” for development staff so they can continue moving forward and staying on schedule.

4. Test management

Many projects are not large enough to involve full-time test management. The project manager can schedule the testing activities and see that test cases, test scenarios, test data, and test results are completed on time and in the format required. However, they generally do not have the time or skills to provide mentorship and oversight throughout the testing process.

The business analyst can provide the mentorship and consistency in the development of testing materials, ensuring that testing will cover all the topics necessary for a complete test. They serve as an informed resource that works to assist the business staff in performing tests that represent the real world of the business from A to Z. Their unique whole-system view allows them to catch or prevent errors or defects that may be missed by individual testers.

Additionally, a business analyst can provide all the final testing documentation, which is critical in meeting oversight and auditing requirements to demonstrate how the testing led to the “go live” decision.

5. Data conversions and migrations

Most SMEs and product owners understand exactly what data is supposed to exist in their applications, but don’t have the expertise to define how that data is supposed to get there or how to confirm that it is the correct data. Again, the project manager can organize the tasks and the review process, but a business analyst can be essential to a project by working with staff in defining, mapping, converting and validating the data in a new or updated application.

The business analyst can help staff organize and define current data and determine equivalences and gaps with new data sets. They can help to document the clean-up or correction of historical data or the mapping of old to new. Most importantly, they can mentor and lead staff through a consistent set of processes for validating and verifying that the correct data is residing in the correct place. This can save a project precious time at the end when data migration often occurs.

6. Change management

Ensuring change is accepted is critical to the long-term success of a project. If a project does not have the resources for a full-time change practitioner, a business analyst can help staff understand, prepare for and reinforce changes to the system they use.

Because a business analyst has a “ground level” understanding of the work from the staff perspective, as well as the wholistic view of the project, they can help staff understand how project changes will affect their work processes. They also have a constant pulse on how staff is feeling. This gives them an understanding of any resistance to change that exists and why, and can help project staff address those concerns before implementation.

7. Post implementation

The business analyst is uniquely situated to have a complete understanding of a new application when it goes live. They have worked with staff on every aspect and component of the application and helped them test the functionality. Staff will quickly become experts at subject areas that pertain to their work and appropriately have little understanding of other critical areas. Development teams and the project management will have their own narrow focus, but the business analyst will have the broadest, most complete perspective. This can be critical as various staff build up experience with the application, but need to understand how processes outside their area of expertise impact their work. During this transitional phase, the business analyst can bring continuity to the initial implementation.

Once any organization has experienced working with a high-quality professional business analyst, they are going to understand the value of having a skilled business analyst on the project team. A business analyst can help reduce project “churn,” get staff integrated into the project, increase effective communication and ultimately, and help keep the project on time and on budget.

For more than 16 years, Treinen has provided premier management and IT consulting in the Northwest. We deliver value to our clients and their customers by focusing on their needs and providing them with the best resources to get the job done. Our business analysts have an average of 11 years of experience on a variety of industries at all stages of a project, including procurement, requirements gathering, development, testing and implementation. If you have questions about bringing a business analyst on to your project, contact us. We would be happy to chat with you about the process and how you can make the best use of a business analyst.

Overwhelmed or unsure of what you need to do to prepare for an Agile project? Information technology projects can be very challenging to begin with, and adopting a new framework can be daunting. Organizations that prepare well have a greater chance of success. Treinen has a long track record of helping our customers succeed with their IT projects, several of which use Agile processes. Here are some of our recommendations to help you prepare and succeed in your next Agile IT project.

1. Understand your goals

Why? While many things can and should be flexible in an Agile project, your goals should remain unchanged. Understanding what you intend to accomplish is core to designing and ordering your product backlog and knowing when your product is ready for delivery to users. This knowledge also reduces uncertainty and drives decisions as the team makes adjustments during the course of the project.

How? Start with a project charter that outlines the purpose of the project and the players who will use and build the system. Don’t over plan. Know just enough to get started and to guide you, but don’t waste time and resources trying to define things you just don’t know right now. Plan for the plan to change.

2. Describe your business using the language of IT

Why? Organizations often have their own jargon and ways of communicating. New project resources have much to learn when they come aboard. Providing information to technical staff in terms and formats familiar to them will help improve communication and reduce orientation time. Documenting your business in this way will help your team build a shared understanding.

How? Work on articulating your business in ways that IT teams will understand. Some of the best ways to describe your business for an Agile project are with use cases and business process diagrams that help you convey complex development efforts that cross multiple sprints. Capture an appropriate level of detail by describing how the business will operate within the new IT solution.

3. Examine your organization’s data

Why? Data cleanup and migration work often contains hidden complexity that can take time to resolve. Data is migrated to the new solution at the end of the project, so getting a head start on data organization and cleanup will help to mitigate risks to your project’s schedule. Understanding the scope of your data migration work will help the team accurately estimate the size of the work to be done and how best to break that up over the course of the project.

How? Think about the data you will need to migrate to the new IT solution. Take the opportunity to re-visit the information that is important to your organization, reviewing the data elements your current systems capture. Are there redundancies and inconsistencies? Do you have any data quality issues? Develop a plan to address these issues as well as your agency’s data retention and sensitive data policies. Finally, begin archiving expired data even before the project begins.

4. Decide to buy or build

Why? A clear understanding of the options available to you will guide procurement or custom development. Knowing what you need will help you evaluate the options you discover and how each will respond to inevitable change in an Agile project. This decision will also drive your budget and help manage what is expected with the new system.

How? Determine if a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) solution is suitable for your business. A COTS solution might be a good fit if you need the new system to support standard business processes. A custom-built IT solution is more appropriate if your business processes are unique or evolving. If new and existing systems will need to “talk to each other,” begin thinking about how to integrate them. Talk to peer agencies both inside and outside the state to learn what they’ve considered and done. Enlist help from the state Office of the Chief Information Officer or your agency’s Enterprise Architecture team for guidance.

5. Prepare for organizational change

Why? New IT solutions can disrupt “business as usual” in a good way, though change can be hard on your people. With so much focus on technology, the “people side” of an IT project can get overlooked. When this happens, the successful adoption of the new IT solution is at risk. Understanding and communicating how people will do their jobs differently is important to articulating the needs within a new solution.

How? Strive to understand as early as possible which of your staff members will feel the impact. Identify how their jobs will be different. Develop a plan to incorporate strong and consistent communication, and outline how you will receive feedback from your users after each sprint to ensure development is on track. Proactively provide your staff with the resources they require to modify their skills set to be successful in the new paradigm.

Treinen can help you prepare for your next Agile project

Implementing these five steps now will help your people and business be ready to succeed using Agile for your next project. Treinen has the experience and approach to help every step of the way.

Our consultants have an average 11 years of experience, mostly on IT projects. We have the technical expertise but also the business know-how to ensure you and your customers are satisfied with your solution for years to come. Contact us today to find out how we can help you achieve your business objectives.